APPTI Proposal Approved for High-Performance Computing Research Funding

An Alliance for Pulp and Paper Technology Innovation (APPTI) proposal has been approved this month (Aug. 16, 2018) to move forward for additional funding for its advanced pulping initiative from the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) under the U.S. Department of Energy’s (Washington, D.C., USA) High-Performance Computing for Manufacturing (HPC4Mfg) Program. 

The APPTI project, begun with member-company funding at the University of Maine (Adriaan van Heiningen, principal investigator) is titled "Molecular Modeling to Increase Kraft Pulp Yield." The project objective is to improve pulp yield during the kraft pulping process. Achieving a yield increase of 5% is one of APPTI’s core technology platform goals. Bench-scale results of the Maine project have indicated a potential 3% increase. The new funding will further extend the benefits of the pretreatment chemistry developed in the original project and reported earlier this year. 

"This award represents a new collaborative step in this important sustainability pathway," said APPTI executive director David Turpin. "The partnership among APPTI members, universities, and the government is catalyzing real progress toward our technology goals.

"This HPC4MFG program illustrates the value of working together to increase manufacturing efficiency," Turpin continued.  "The investments of all the parties are multiplied through such collaboration, and the national laboratories’ powerful computing tools are helping to make manufacturers more competitive and more sustainable. We thank the Department for its support for our efforts."

  

The awards announced by the U.S. Department of Energy yesterday are the latest in a suite of projects designed to use supercomputers to advance U.S. manufacturing. There were 13 industry projects totaling just under $3.8 million in this group of awards. 

The APPTI proposal will be carried out by both the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Oak Ridge National Laboratory.

APPTI has submitted two other modeling proposals in recent years to the HPC4MFG program and both were funded.  One addressed a different approach to increasing pulp yield, and is under way at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the University of Tennessee in collaboration with the US Forest Products Laboratory and APPTI members; the other was performed at Lawrence Livermore and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to reduce the energy intensiveness of drying the sheet in paper mills by understanding how water moves out of the sheet and sometimes back into it.

More information about the HPC4Mfg program and projects are available online. 

 

For more information about APPTI Next-Generation Pulping Projects and the project with the University of Maine, please visit the official website.

At the APPTI website you can also find information about becoming an APPTI member or partner as well as information about the other projects and programs.